The next morning, Mara woke to the sound of scratching.
It wasn't the usual hum of the wind scraping against the motel window. No, this was different. This came from beneath her, deep in the floorboards, like something alive was trying to claw its way up through the wood.
She lay there, frozen. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears, the sound of it mixing with the strange rhythm from below. It wasn't frantic — it wasn't a desperate, thrashing kind of noise. It was measured. Three sharp scrapes, then silence. Again. Then silence again. Like something was counting. Watching. Waiting.
She sat up slowly, heart racing. The thin gray light creeping through the curtains was almost suffocating, thick and heavy with fog. The room felt colder now. The air, thick with the smell of damp earth, pressed in from every direction.
Mara glanced at the window. The fog hadn't lifted. It had thickened overnight, coiling around the trees outside like smoke, swallowing the town whole. She swallowed hard, trying to steady her nerves.
The scratching came again.
Three scrapes.
Silence.
Mara's eyes flitted to the corner of the room where the ceiling met the wall. The shadows in the corners seemed to twist and stretch in unnatural ways, as though they were moving when she wasn't looking. Her fingers twitched, reaching toward the Glock holstered by her side, but she stopped herself. No. She needed answers — real ones. She couldn't let paranoia dictate her every step.
She grabbed her jacket and pulled it on, then left the bed behind, her boots hitting the floor with muted thuds. No shower today. The water had run black the night before, and she wasn't going to risk whatever had made it that way. The town had been offering nothing but problems since she'd arrived.
Outside, the fog swallowed the parking lot whole. Her boots made no sound as they tread across the damp concrete. The place felt off — too quiet. No birds. No traffic. Not even the hum of distant voices. It was like the town had decided to disappear.
Her footsteps echoed in the silence.
She didn't waste any time. Today, she wasn't going to wait for the answers to find her. She would go out and find them herself. The library first. She didn't know what she was looking for, but something about the old town records, something about the roots of this place felt important. She had to get there.
Across the street from a dilapidated gas station stood the town's library. It looked like it had been built decades ago, its brick facade crumbling in places, some shingles missing from the roof. The windows were clouded with dust, so thick it was a wonder anyone could see inside. A sign hung crookedly near the door with the word "OPEN" scrawled in chalk.
Inside, the air was colder than outside. The faint buzz of an old fluorescent light above was the only sound, casting a sickly glow on rows of dusty books. A woman sat behind the checkout desk, hands folded neatly in front of her. Her skin was pale, as though she hadn't seen the sun in years, her features sharp and angular, like they'd been carved from stone.
Mara approached the desk. "I'm looking for town records. Anything about the history of this place."
The woman didn't blink. Her eyes, pale as fog, just stared at Mara for a long moment. Finally, she spoke. "You won't find what you want."
Mara felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise, but she didn't back down. "I still want to look."
The woman didn't respond. She just nodded once, slowly, and pointed toward a door at the back of the room, a small sign above it reading "ARCHIVE."
Mara thanked her with a brief nod and moved toward the back. The floor creaked beneath her, the wood groaning like it had something to say. As she passed the rows of books, she noticed how everything felt strangely familiar. The layout of the room. The weight of the air. Like she'd been here before.
When she reached the door to the archive, she saw that it was different from the others — newer. The wood looked polished, the hinges shiny, the lock a little too pristine. There was a key hanging from a nail next to the door. Mara grabbed it and unlocked the door.
Inside, it was as if time had forgotten to pass. Filing cabinets lined the walls, stacked boxes covered in decades-old dust, drawers that hadn't been opened in years. It felt oppressive, suffocating — like everything in the room had been locked away on purpose, left to decay in silence. And in the far corner, there was a single cardboard box, its top flap bent and creased, marked with the word "ROOTS" in faded marker.
Mara moved toward it.
She opened the box.
Inside were photographs. Not of people, but of trees. Hundreds of them, each more unsettling than the last. Some trees looked ancient, their trunks gnarled and twisted like the twisted veins of some great beast, while others were younger, their bark smooth but still marked by something unnatural. Each photo had a location pinned to it, coordinates scrawled underneath the trees.
But what made her breath catch in her throat were the carvings in the bark. Eyes. Mouths. Names. These weren't just any trees. They were marked. The markings weren't random. Each tree seemed to have its own symbol, its own message, its own story. One photo had a date written in the bottom corner: May 2, 1961.
The same date as Samantha's birthday.
Mara flipped through the photos, her fingers trembling. She found another, this one of a tree she recognized. It was a massive pine, its trunk thick and twisted, standing alone in the middle of a clearing. She had passed it the day before, just outside the sheriff's station. It was impossible to miss.
And then, beneath the photos, something else — a thin, leather-bound book. No title. No author. Just pages worn from time, stained in places with dark ink and even darker history.
Mara opened the book.
The first page read:
"Offerings to the Hollow must be buried, but not forgotten. Roots drink memory. Memory is flesh. One must be given to protect the others."
Mara's breath caught in her throat. The words felt wrong. They felt like they were written for her, for this moment. She continued to flip through the pages. Sketches — jagged, childlike drawings of bodies twisted and bound in the roots of trees, their mouths open in silent screams. One page was torn down the middle, the ragged edge stained with what looked like blood.
On the next page, someone had scrawled in red ink:
"THE ROOT UNDER THE SHERIFF'S TREE BLEEDS."
Mara felt the weight of the words hit her like a ton of bricks. She knew which tree they meant. It was the same one she'd seen the day before, standing tall behind the sheriff's station. The one Grady had called an "old memorial," but had refused to explain further.
Her heart hammered in her chest as she snapped the book closed and stormed out of the library.
She was ten minutes from the station when she saw it again — the tree. The massive pine, gnarled and leaning toward the earth like a forgotten sentinel. She parked on the side of the road and got out, her boots crunching the gravel beneath her.
The air was still. No wind. No sounds. Only the creaking of the tree's branches as they moved ever so slightly.
She walked to the fence that surrounded the tree, the rusted wire groaning under her touch as she climbed over. She wasn't waiting anymore. She wasn't asking questions. She was going to find out for herself what this tree had to do with everything.
Her fingers brushed against the rough bark. It was warm to the touch, like something alive. She moved lower, tracing the cracks in the bark with her fingers. Then she saw it. A faint line running just above the roots, a split in the tree's skin, oozing something thick and dark. It looked almost like tar, black-red and viscous, dripping slowly down the tree's trunk.
Mara drew her knife and wedged it into the split. The bark gave way with a wet, sickening sound.
Inside the hollow, something glinted.
Her fingers brushed against cold metal. Familiar. Too familiar.
She pulled out a chain.
A necklace.
Samantha's necklace.
Mara stumbled back, her heart crashing against her ribcage. She didn't know what she was expecting, but it wasn't this. She stood there, staring at the necklace in her hand, the world spinning around her.
Then, just as suddenly as the moment began, the tree shuddered. A tremor rippled through its bark, and for a split second, Mara swore she saw it move — not in any way that made sense, but like it had exhaled. The roots beneath her feet groaned, the ground shifting.
Her boot was tangled in one of them.
She pulled her foot free with a sharp gasp and scrambled backward, vaulting over the fence and running back to her car. Her heart was racing. The world felt too small, too tight.
The tree didn't move again.
But it bled. A single drop of dark, viscous fluid rolled down its bark, disappearing into the earth.
Back at the motel, Mara locked the door behind her. The necklace sat in front of her on the table, cold and still. She grabbed her recorder and pressed record.
"Agent Mara Ellison. August 12th. Recovered evidence from behind the sheriff's station — the missing girl's necklace embedded inside a living tree. Suggesting body was either buried or consumed by root system. Tree exhibited heat, movement. No plausible explanation."
She stopped the recording and stared at the device in her hands. Then her eyes fell on the sketchbook.
It was open again.
And this time, it wasn't just a drawing.
Mara stood before the tree, reaching into its hollow. Her eyes were black. Empty. Behind her, something watched from the shadows.
She slammed the book shut, her heart hammering in her chest.
But as she reached for her phone, she realized — there was still no signal.
And then, the whispering started again.
That night, she dreamed.
This time, she was in the woods. The trees stretched endlessly in every direction, identical, pressing in on her. She called out, but no one answered. Her flashlight flickered.
And then she saw her.
Samantha.
Standing in a clearing ahead of her, pale and lifeless, her eyes vacant.
Mara ran toward her, but as she reached the clearing, the girl was gone. In her place, a hole opened in the ground. Not dug. Not natural. A perfect circle, lined with writhing roots.
A voice rose from the dark, low and hoarse.
"You found it."
Mara turned, but no one stood there.
"You remember. That's how it begins."
Something grabbed her leg.
She fell.
And as she tumbled into the pit, the last thing she saw was her own reflection in a broken mirror buried beneath the roots — mouth open in a scream she couldn't hear.
She woke with a jolt. Her skin was slick with sweat. Her nails had dug into her palms.
The sketchbook was open again.
And this time, it wasn't her drawing the roots.
It was something else.
Crawling.
Watching.
Waiting.